Posts tagged with: individual liberty

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks at the Acton Institute, hosting a number of events here in Grand Rapids including a couple of Acton Lecture Series presentations. The first of those came on October 15, as we welcomed John Blundell, Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. His talk was titled “Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History,” and provided a fine overview of a the contribution that women have made to the struggle for liberty in American history. We’re pleased to present video of Blundell’s lecture below.

More: John Blundell spoke once before as part of the Acton Lecture Series, in 2011. You can view his earlier address, “Lessons from Margaret Thatcher,” after the jump. (more…)

The Fall 2013 Acton On Tap series kicked off at Speak EZ Lounge in downtown Grand Rapids, Mich., this evening with Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, who addressed gathered attendees on the lessons our society can learn from the history of Rome. In the interest of speedy delivery, you can listen to the raw audio of Reed’s presentation and the Q&A that followed using the audio player below.

For those not in the know, Acton On Tap is a great little periodic event that the Acton Institute presents in our hometown of Grand Rapids. It’s a free, informal gathering held at a local establishment where you can join us for a cold drink, some good conversation, and a talk on a topic of interest from a variety of interesting people. If you’re in West Michigan, you’re always welcome to join us! We’ll keep you updated as future AOT events are scheduled.

Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, continues his radio tour of America in support of his latest book, Tea Party Catholic, and we continue to round up those interviews for your edification. This one took place on September 24th, on WLEA in Hornell, New York. Another intelligent interview; you can listen via the audio player below.

Acton Director of Research Samuel Gregg continues his radio rounds today with an interview in support of his new book, Tea Party Catholic, on WOCA 96.3FM in Ocala Florida. You can hear his discussion on AM Ocala Live! via the audio player below:

Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg has been making the rounds on our nations airwaves over the last week promoting his excellent new book, Tea Party Catholic. Today, he joined host Jeff Crouere on Metaire, Louisiana’s WGSO 990 AM. You can listen to the interview via the audio player below:

What does this mean? The program is designed to award monetary grants to states that have “modest” home visiting programs currently, and would like to expand those programs. The goal, purportedly, is to increase the health of mothers and young children and things like “developing a family-centered approach to home-visiting.” This comes from an amendment in the Social Security Act. (more…)

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) took to the Senate floor yesterday and quoted Lord Acton’s well known dictum, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” There’s a partisan bite to his words, but he mostly warns against the grave dangers and tyranny under concentrated and centralized power.

Cornyn of course, is addressing the multitude of scandals blowing up in Washington, many of them linked to the White House. He also admits corruption has been a problem under both political parties. Cornyn says that we need “to restore faith in Washington.” It’s a worthy goal, but perhaps part of the problem is Americans already have too much faith and trust in federal power. The Texas senator concludes by saying we need to “respect the wisdom of the ages when it comes to concentrated power and its impact on individual liberty.”